What are the Health Benefits of Chocolate?

Chocolate is every person’s way of satisfying a sweet tooth and it is delicious. However, it was believed that it have health benefits as well, which would make lovers of the sweet, very happy indeed.

Historically speaking, the Aztecs used it as a religious energy drink, and it was believed that it helps digestion. Other ailments include coughs, jaundice, the “New Disease” (i.e., syphilis), and gout. According to some, it aided the constitutionally frail; while others said it helped calm down the overstimulated.

Back then, chocolate was commonly available in a liquid form, as a drink. However, that changed in the 1870s, when a Swiss confectioner invented a solid bar of chocolate, combined with milk. With fewer expensive cocoa beans per bar, milk chocolate was a far cheaper product than its dark predecessor, and chocolate changed from a dish for the rich to a more democratic treat.

But with milk, there were worries about fat, and chocolate was then perceived as a candy. It also picked up a bad reputation for triggering acne outbreaks, contributing to migraines, and giving people heartburn.

In 1988, chocolate was blamed of causing itching, migraines, and indigestion. However, a year later, studies found that the fat from cocoa butter is good for health. Since then, there have been arguments and counter-arguments on its health benefits.

1996 was the year that things started looking up for chocolate again. First, scientists found that chocolate was not the cause acne outbreaks, as previously believed.

Two years later, the theory of chocolate causing migraines was disproved. In 2002 it was discovered that antioxidants in chocolate are healthy.

The next couple of years were once again a golden time for chocolate lovers. According to scientists a chemical in chocolate is better than codeine at stopping coughs. The cocoa lowers blood pressure, and that the benefits of one compound found in cocoa can rival penicillin and anaesthesia.

The next couple of years drift by with the science equivalent of static fuzz. Plus side: synthetic cocoa might help cure some cancers, chocolate milk might help fight atherosclerosis, and the Swedes are sticking to their heart-healthy guns.

In 2011, though, a bolt from the blue! A meta-study from Cambridge found that chocolate does probably definitely lower stroke rates, coronary heart disease, and high blood pressure. And the next year, settling the debate for once and for all, another study found that regular chocolate eaters are, improbably, thinner.

Chocolate probably helps with vascular problems, but only in super-dark form, and only if you don’t eat too much of it, and even then all that sugar and milk fat are bad for you, and if you want to be healthy you should probably just exercise more.